In the prior art, a storage space of a mobile phone may be classified into a self-owned storage space and an extended storage space according to a location of the storage space, for example, a built-in SD card (a separate storage space provided on a self-owned storage chip) as the self-owned storage space and an external SD card as the extended storage space. A mobile phone typically has two such SD cards.
Currently, for installation of an application and storage of running data on an open platform such as android (android), only a specified path is used by default, for example, only a path “/sdcard” is identified. Some manufacturers, before a mobile phone leaves the factory, directly map a built-in SD card to a specified path “/sdcard”; some manufactures directly map an external SD card to a specified path “/sdcard”; and some manufactures switch mapping paths of a built-in SD card and an external SD card when the external SD card is inserted in or pulled out.
Different path mapping modes for a built-in SD card and an external SD card in the industry bring much inconvenience for a user. For example, when a built-in SD card of a certain mobile phone is fixedly mapped to a specified path “/sdcard”, if a user installs an application in an external SD card, data that is generated after the application is run is still stored in the built-in SD card; on the contrary, when an external SD card of a certain mobile phone is fixed mapped to a specified path “/sdcard”, if a user installs an application in a built-in SD card, data that is generated after the application is run is still stored in the external SD card.